Australian entertainer Rolf Harris, a TV family favourite in his homeland and Britain for more than 50 years, was known as the “octopus” for the way he groped women and was involved in a pattern of abuse involving girls, a court heard yesterday.
Harris, 84, is the biggest name to go on trial since British police launched a major investigation sparked by revelations that the late BBC TV host Jimmy Savile was a prolific child sex abuser, leading to the arrest of more than a dozen ageing celebrities.
Harris is known by millions in Britain and Australia for pop chart hits such as Two Little Boys and Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport.
A keen artist, he painted Queen Elizabeth’s portrait in 2005, was honoured by her for his services to entertainment and charity and performed at her 2012 Diamond Jubilee concert. Harris’s daughter, Bindi, and his wife, Alwen Hughes, were at his side as he arrived at Southwark Crown Court.
The white-bearded, bespectacled entertainer sat silently in the dock as he was accused of 12 counts of indecent assault against four girls between 1968 and 1986, the youngest of whom was aged just seven or eight at the time of the alleged offence.
He denies the charges.
On the opening day of what is expected to be a six-week trial, the 12-member jury of six men and six women heard that Harris had a reputation at an Australian TV channel for his inappropriate behaviour.
“He was known as the octopus because of the way he would put his hands all over women,” said prosecutor Sasha Wass. “He took advantage of his fame and popularity.”
Wass said Harris was a Jekyll and Hyde figure, whose “dark side” was not known to colleagues and companions for decades.
He developed a consistent approach in gaining the trust of his young victims before abusing them, the jury heard.
“You will see a pattern during the case, of Mr Harris approaching girls in a purely friendly way and then once he is in close physical contact with them, taking advantage of the situation in order to indecently assault them,” Wass said. (Reuters)